1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a gas storage apparatus and, in particular, to a hydrogen storage apparatus.
2. Related Art
Recently, hydrogen has been widely applied to the industrial manufacturing processes, and the specifications in the fields of manufacturing, storage, transportation and application thereof have been gradually specified perfectly. The current hydrogen storage technology mainly includes the liquefied hydrogen storage, the high-pressure hydrogen storage, the metal hydride hydrogen storage, the alloy hydrogen storage, and the like. However, when the hydrogen is stored either in a low-temperature liquid state or a high-pressure gaseous state, a lot of energy has to be consumed to liquefy or compress the hydrogen. In addition, the excellent low-temperature insulating device or the specific thick and heavy high-pressure bottle has to be provided to serve as the storage container. Thus, the costs for these two hydrogen storage apparatuses are very high.
The conventional hydrogen container usually contains metal alloy powders for storing hydrogen. The metal alloy can store hydrogen within the lattice structure of the metal so as to form metal hydride compounds. The hydrogen absorbing or releasing procedure will be company with corresponding endothermic or exothermic chemical reaction. This hydrogen storage method has the following advantages. The hydrogen storage density is high, the reaction can be performed at room temperature and without high pressure, the safety of the hydrogenised product is high, the doubt of explosion is absent, and the highly-pure hydrogen can be obtained. So, the metal alloy hydrogen storage method has gradually become the important direction of research in the current hydrogen storage technology.
However, the hydrogen absorption capacity of the metal alloy is limited. In general, the hydrogenation procedure of the metal alloy can release heat, which should be effectively removed to maintain the following hydrogen storage performance. To seek for higher hydrogen storage performance, it is desired to develop a novel hydrogen storage container having higher thermal conduction efficiency. Taiwan Patent No. I267,605 discloses a popular hydrogen storage apparatus, which has a honeycomb structure for enhancing the thermal conduction efficiency. However, this disclosed structure is very complicated and difficult in fabrication.
Therefore, it is an important subject to provide a hydrogen storage apparatus that can effectively increase the thermal conduction efficiency during absorbing or releasing hydrogen.